Gulf allies nervously watch shipping lanes

Press, 19 May 1984, Page 10

Gulf allies nervously watch shipping lanes

NZPA-Reuter Bahrain Saudi Arabia and its conservative Gulf Arab allies nervously watched shipping movements in the Gulf yesterday as most of their vital oil exports appeared at the mercy of warring neighbours Iran and Iraq.

The Saudis and their allies on the southern shores of the Gulf publicly accused Iran of attacking their oil tankers but gave no hint that they felt in a position to make any military response.

The Foreign Ministers of the six conservative Gulf States, meeting in Riyadh, said they were taking the matter to the United Nations Security Council and appeared to be watching the progress of merchant shipping before taking any further action. The six — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab

Emirates — have pumped billions of dollars into Iraq’s war effort but were not directly affected by the war until the last few weeks.

Then, two Saudi oil tankers were hit after loading Iranian oil at Iran’s Kharg Island terminal. The Iraqis were presumed to have attacked the ships because Iraq is trying to prevent all Iranian oil exports from the island.

Next, two Kuwaiti tankers and a Saudi supertanker, neither of them close to Iran or involved with Iranian oil, were attacked and the Gulf States blamed Iran. Iran has not admitted hitting any ships, but a senior Iranian leader and military spokesman, Hojatoleslam Hashemi Rafsanjani, issued a strong warning shortly beforethe latest Saudi tanker, the Yanbu Pride, was hit.

He said Iran would not see its oil exports disrupted without disrupting those from the other side of the Gulf. He reiterated that Iran would “not sit back and watch the closure of its oil route in the Persian Gulf.”

According to a dispatch by the Iranian national news agency, Irna, Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani said “Continuation of the war is also in the interests of the super-Powers. We must end the war with a large-scale andfar-reaching operation.” Judging by the Irna dispatch, he did not elaborate. But he could have been referring to action in or over the waterway, or on the ground battlefronts along the Iran-Iraq border. Iran has been expected to launch a new ground offensive for the last two months and is said by diplomats in both Bagdad and Teheran to

have massed hundreds of thousands of men near the front lines.

Shipping sources said vessels were still moving in the south of the Gulf yesterday although there were fewer than usual. The situation in the north of the waterway, closer to Kharg Island and what Iraq calls a prohibited war zone, was less clear.

However, there were indications that at least some vessels were avoiding sailing close to the area until the situation became clearer.

Meanwhile, Iraq has said its warplanes attacked two large ships south of the Kharg Island terminal. An Iraqi military spokesman said the two “large naval targets,” were hit “directly and effectively.” All the” fighter planes returned safely to base after setting the targets ablaze.